


food of love, play on

by ships_to_sail



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Developing Relationship, First Kiss, Fluff, I'm Sorry, Karaoke, M/M, ridiculous fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 15:51:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14108808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ships_to_sail/pseuds/ships_to_sail
Summary: Sonny groaned. He'd promised to perform a song of her choosing in apology for forgetting to get her a gift - “in fairness, my voice should be the only gift you really need, Rollins” had earned him a solid punch to the arm - and she'd been wilfully obstinate in giving him any hints about what song she'd picked. He grabbed his glass, God he really hoped it was his glass, and drained it, standing up slowly and giving his head a moment to steady before he offered her a small salute.“Your wish is my command, birthday girl,” and he pressed a smacking kiss on her cheek as he made his way towards the stage.





	food of love, play on

**Author's Note:**

> I threw my back out at work, and in between looped viewings of "October Surprises" and codeine naps, this little thing happened.
> 
> Every member of The Fight Garden contributed a little bit of something to this, but the best moments by far came from Robin Hood and Power-Bottom-Barba. I will forever be grateful that this community of amazing writers and people took me into the fold with love and humor and the willingness to put up with me through all my drug fueled nonsense. 
> 
> "The Best is Yet to Come" is entirely because of [this video right here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mGhab5rivw&feature=youtu.be), and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that boat.
> 
> This has not been beta'd, and we're just gonna ignore how much alcohol these crazy kids actually consume in such a short period of time, and how coherent they manage to stay anyway. Any other glaring mistakes are 100% my doing.
> 
> Tip jar is always open for kudos/comments!

**9 PM**

Rafael Barba stood under the awning on the opposite corner and watched the neon beer signs blink on and off the oil slicked puddles of rain in the street. With the haze of drizzle and the rainbow sheen, the bar looked like some kind of fairyland, the kind of place that wouldn't be here if they went looking for it tomorrow.

Leave it to Amanda to find a place like this, a hole in the wall with, apparently, the city's best chicken sandwich and deals on Friday night Long Island Iced Teas. And karaoke. Of course. 

Flipping up the collar of his coat, he shrugged his shoulders to his ears and trotted out into the rain, the closest thing to a run his dignity would allow. He only had to get through two more hours and then he'd allow himself to go home. How bad could two hours be?

*

Sonny was just sliding back into his stool at the bar, his long limbs heavy and loose, when he noticed Rafael at the bar next to Olivia, jacket slung over the back of her chair. He plucked a lukewarm onion ring out of the basket and took a bite with a small shudder. The chicken sandwich had been just as good as promised, but everything else was leaving a lot to be desired. 

Except the Long Islands. Those had been poured smooth and heavy and after three of them Sonny was glad Amanda had chosen this place for her birthday. 

The birthday girl in question was also just now returning to the table and rubbing her hands together with malicious glee. 

“Alright, Carisi. You're next.” 

Sonny groaned. He'd promised to perform a song of her choosing in apology for forgetting to get her a gift - “in fairness, my voice should be the only gift you really need, Rollins” had earned him a solid punch to the arm - and she'd been wilfully obstinate in giving him any hints about what song she'd picked. He grabbed his glass, God he really hoped it was his glass, and drained it, standing up slowly and giving his head a moment to steady before he offered her a small salute.

“Your wish is my command, birthday girl,” and he pressed a smacking kiss on her cheek as he made his way towards the stage.

**9:30 PM**

Rafael didn't remember ordering more than a single two fingers of scotch for himself. But then Olivia had insisted she needed help finishing her bottle of red, and Amanda had whirled by the bar shortly before Carisi went on stage and insisted they all do a round of something called a Flaming Dr. Pepper which, while dangerous, had indeed tasted like Dr. Pepper.

And then Rafael heard the music pause to shuffle and it was Sonny's turn.

Amanda slid into the seat next to him, slipping another glass of scotch into his hand. He was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when the gift horse in question had an impish look in her eye as she leaned over and whispered, “This is gonna be great.”

He saw Sonny peak at the screen on his way up the short set of stairs and would have sworn the briefest look of irritation crossed his face.  But when he looked back at the small crowd in the bar, his gaze narrowed in on Amanda and satisfaction flashed behind his eyes. 

He looked so confidant, pulling the tails of his shirt out of his pants and running a hand through his hair, skin flushed pink and covered in the slightest sheen of sweat. Rafael’s cock twitched.  He licked his lips and leaned forward unconsciously in his seat as a series of bass and drum beats came over the speakers and every girl in the bar erupted in the same high pitched scream.

Barba watched as Carisi raised and lowered his arms, crossing his legs and spinning in a  full circle, his rocking his body from left to right before he executed some kind of complicated jumping routine, all the while keeping his bright, clear tenor voice heard above the instrumental track: “ _ every little thing I do/never seems enough for you/you don’t want to lose it again/but I’m not like them/baby when you finally/get to love somebody/guess what”  _ and after the second spin-and-slide maneuver, he found Barba’s eyes and held them. Rafael tracked the shape of his mouth as he sang. “ _ It’s gonna be me.” _

Sonny held the eye contact while he rolled his hips lewdly, breaking to strut around the stage as he finished the song, hitting the high note in the final chorus with surprising gusto. He clutched one hand to his heaving chest and thrust the other one above his head triumphantly as the bar went wild. Rafael had the strong suspicion that if this had been a different kind of bar there would have been dollar bills involved.

As it was, Sonny hopped off the stage and crossed to where he and Amanda sat at the bar, looping his arm around Amanda’s shoulders and pulling her in for a side hug. “Hope that was worth it,” he practically shouted as the next song started and he was pleased to hear a song he recognized. His mother loved Nancy Sinatra and he would go to his grave being able to pick out the opening chords to “These Boots Were Made for Walking”. He grinned when he saw Olivia walk to the front of the stage, jacket in Tucker’s hands and arms bared as she growled seductively into the microphone. He let out a ‘whoop’ of his own before downing the rest of his scotch and turning his attention back to Sonny and Amanda. 

“Where did you learn the actual dance?! How many times did you have to watch the music video to do that?”

“When Johnny Malducci dropped out of the senior talent show, my sister Bella only had one other guy she could call last minute.” Sonny waved hand up and down his own body before bowing slightly to Amanda’s round of golf claps. “Yours truly. Looks like some things you never forget, no matter how much you may want to. And for the record, Rollins: we won first place that year, so that’s an award winning routine you just witnessed.” Sonny puffed his chest out proudly.

“I have to say, Carisi, I’m impressed,” Barba butted in. He felt intrusive and awkward, but the sharper edges of his self judgement were blunted under a few solid layers of alcohol, and he wasn’t the one who’d just performed an entire boy band routine for God’s sake. “You managed to move pretty smoothly for someone with all that leg.”

Sonny and Amanda both raised their eyebrows and Sonny huffed out half a chuckle. Rafael looked back down at his glass, which had somehow magically refilled itself again, and tried and failed to do a quick recount.

“So, uh, you been noticing my legs, counselor?” Sonny leaned in to ask as Amanda stepped down the bar a few paces, waving to get the bartender’s attention. Rafael choked on his scotch and smoothed down the tie he realized a second too late he wasn’t wearing. 

“There’s just so much of them, the prove a decent distraction from your nose,” Rafael spat, trying and failing to keep his face from turning beet red. He expected Sonny to sputter, but the blonde just laughed, low and dangerous, as he reached out for the glass Amanda handed him as she approached. 

“Just means you’re looking at my face, too,” he said under his breath just as Amanda produced a roll of quarters from her pocket and chirped 

“Who wants to play?!”

**10 PM**

10:00 was apparently the prearranged time for the karaoke booth guy to take his smoke break, which wasn’t all that awful considering they were currently half way through their third round of quarters and if Sonny didn’t start getting his mojo back he was going to be passed out in a booth with his shoes on before he got the chance to sing again. He took a deep breath and sat up straighter, lining up his shot and saying a silent prayer as he slammed the coin onto the worn wooden table.

Luck was on his side as the quarter barely cleared the side of the shot glass and clanged loudly to the bottom. He slammed a fist on the table with a loud “hahah!” and grinned like a maniac as he passed the shot in front of him to Barba. Barba’s eyes widened and he shook his head emphatically. “No. Absolutely not.”

“You have to,” Amanda slurred, leaning sideways until her shoulder bumped into his, misjudging the distance and slipping out of the barstool and halfway to the floor with a shout. Barba reached out for her arm and missed, landing on the second time just below her armpit and helping to hoist her back to her seat. She sat, laughing until tears poured down her cheeks. Sonny snorted and shook his head.

“Happy birthday, Amanda. She’s right though, you know.” Sonny was surprisingly focused given that he’d had just as much to drink as Amanda, if not quite as quickly. “It’s the rule. I made it, you didn’t, you drink.”

“That’s well tequila, Sonny.”

“I didn’t pick it.”

“I haven’t had well tequila since I was a freshman in  _ high school _ . Do you know what that shit does to your insides?”

“Well, if you can’t handle it,” Sonny trailed off and took a long pull off the beer he was nursing. He was long past the point where he cared about mixing his drinks. Sonny stared at him pointedly and waited. He knew Rafael couldn’t sit through a direct challenge. This was the same man who’d given his home address to the man who once made death threats against him. He waited, and breathed, and watched the instinct to prove himself war with his hatred for cheap liquor until, with a heavy sigh, Rafael snatched the glass off the table and downed it in a single swallow.

Sonny watched the way his throat worked as the liquor burned his way down and had to readjust himself under the table. It only got worse when Rafael set the glass back down upside down on the table and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, licking a few spare drops off the tip of thumb. His tongue was a shade of pink Sonny had never seen before, and he wanted to paint a house that color so he never had to stop looking at. 

Maybe he was as drunk as Amanda was. 

He wouldn’t have to find out, luckily, as Rafael offered to grab them another round from the bar - and Sonny was all too happy to take him up on a pause in the game. Amanda had already laid her head down on pillowed arms, hair falling across her face in a gently curtain as she snored gently. 

He scooted his stool closer and leaned against her, his head rolling heavily on his neck. He braced his forehead in one hand before his stomach started rolling alongside his head, and was just on the border of sleep himself when he heard it. 

The karaoke guy wasn’t back yet, and the man at the mic wasn’t accompanied by any musical track. The people closest to the stage sat in rapt attention as a wave of silence swept backwards, everyone’s eyes drawn to the stage.

Rafael stood in the single spotlight, microphone in his hand as he talked-sung his way through the first few lines of a song every Italian kid in Staten Island was born knowing. 

“ _ Out of the tree of life/I just picked me a plum” _

Sonny crossed to where Olivia and Tucker were still sitting at the bar, the round Rafael had gone to grab sitting abandoned. Sonny picked up the sweaty beer bottle and leaned close to Olivia.

“How exactly did that happen?”

“No idea. We were just talking, giving him a hard time about how he was the only one who hadn’t gone yet, and Tucker said something about it being okay if he was embarrassed...he kept waving it off, we were just teasing you know?” Olivia sounded like she almost felt bad, and Sonny could just hear the sound of Tucker’s voice as he implied that singing in public was a task Rafael couldn’t handle. “And then he just set both drinks down and marched up there.”

Sonny wasn’t surprised that he’d done it. He was surprised at how beautiful Rafael sounded, at how even a night of reckless drinking hadn’t taken away the soft way his voice wrapped around the chorus, the sexy growl as he sang his way through Sonny’s favorite lines 

_ “Wait till your charms are right for these arms to surround/You think you've flown before, but baby, you ain't left the ground”  _

and when he finished, holding out the final words to a song that everybody knew, the bar was silent for just a beat. Just long enough for Rafael to look out across the bar, find Tucker, and wink before applause erupted even louder than it had for Sonny. 

“I thought you said you couldn’t sing!” Olivia insisted when he made his way back to them, taking the drink that Sonny proffered to him.

“I never said that,” he drawled, sipping at the amber liquid in his glass. Sonny wasn’t sure, but if he had to guess, he’d say Rafael had downed easily half a bottle of scotch already. And yet he sounded like he was ready to walk into court and lay down closing arguments. It was the kind of confidence that sent Sonny’s stomach flipping and his blood running south. He couldn’t stop staring at Rafael’s fingers as they ran a slow circle around the edge of his glass. “I just said I didn’t want to. And now you know why.”

“Why? You were fantastic,” Tucker said, working to cover a multitude of past sins with renewed enthusiasm. 

“I know. My point exactly,” Rafael deadpanned, raising his glass for another slow sip as Sonny burst out in laughter. 

** 10:30 PM **

“No way. You cannot be serious.”

“Dead to rights, counselor. Have you ever heard it?”

“Give me a little credit, detective, please.”

Sonny threw his hands up defensively. “All I’m saying - if you’ve ever heard it, you know I’m right.”

“Uh-uh. In a world of Beny Moré and Celia Cruz, no way does Lionel Ritchie take home the award for greatest love song.”

“Ah, you didn’t say greatest. You said favorite. The way it sounds when you do it live,” Sonny’s eyes got a faraway look that made them look fuzzier than any of the drinking so far had managed. “My parents had their first dance to that song.”

“Ah. There it is. See, I knew you were a biased vote.” Rafael chuckled ruefully and Sonny just raised an eyebrow before draining his beer and setting it down with a resound click.

“Alright, wise guy,” he muttered under his breath as he walked away towards the small stage and whispered in the DJs ear. 

Rafael turned his bar stool so he faced the stage directly and crossed his arms, rolling his eyes as the first few strains of music started. Sonny held the microphone in his hand softly, and when he opened his mouth, his eyes didn’t leave Rafael’s face for a moment. 

The logical part of Rafael’s brain knew no one else was paying attention. They hadn’t been all night. Dodds was playing a game on his phone next to a sleeping Amanda. Fin was playing darts by himself in the corner. Olivia and Tucker were so wrapped up in themselves, making googly eyes and lip synching along to all the songs. But the logical part of Rafael’s brain hadn't crossed the street with him an hour and a half ago.

It was the only explanation for the reason his heart began to beat a little fast as Sonny softly sang to him - and only to him - across a Manhattan karaoke bar. 

“ _ And your eyes, your eyes, your eyes/they tell me how much you care/ooh yes/you will always be/my endless love _ ” 

Rafael shivered and felt the smallest prick of tears at the corners of his eyes. It was the alcohol. And the low lighting. And the way the stage lights bounced of the silver hair in his temples. Rafael wouldn’t let his mind think about their hours together over protective detail, about the brotherly way he’d kissed Amanda on the top of the forehead, about the long taper of his fingers as he tried to wash Tom Cole’s blood off his shaking hands. 

“ _ And love, oh love/I'll be a fool, for you I'm sure/you know I don't mind/you know I don't mind _ ”

It was the alcohol. It had to be the alcohol. If it was just the alcohol, he wouldn’t have to think about the millions of ways it was a bad idea for an ADA to get involved with a Manhattan SVU detective. 

“ _ I know I know/I've found, I've found in you/my endless love _ ”

Sonny held the final note as his mouth quirked into a gentle grin. ‘Told you so’ he mouthed at Barba as the crowd in the bar clapped and Trevor and Olivia gave him a standing ovation from their table, practically knocking the thing over when they sat down again.

Rafael raised his glass in salute and cleared his throat. “Not bad, detective.”

“Not bad?!” Sonny sounded legitimately affronted. “Come on, Rafael. You know you loved it.”

Had he seen it? From across the bar, with the lights in his eyes, had it been written that clearly on Rafael’s face? He forced out a noise that he hoped sounded like a laugh and slapped the bar stool next to him. “Take a seat, Carisi. Let the pro show you how it’s done.”

*

Sonny already knew Rafael could sing. That had been made beyond evident early in the night. What he couldn’t get the man to do was talk.

He’d seen...something there. When he’d sang, when he’d finished and made his way through the maze of tables in front of the stage. There had been the smallest shadow of something there, something fleeting and faint, but unmistakable. The way he looked at Sonny, the way Sonny had looked back - no amount of alcohol could make that happen.

But he hadn’t said a god damned word. Just patted the seat next to him and upped the ante in their game, nudging him gently with his shoulder as he walked past. He and the DJ seemed to share some kind of back and forth, eventually coming to an agreement and the DJ rifled through a bin of actual vinyl he hadn’t had reason to touch to this point.

The gentle scratch of record filled the speakers, and Rafael’s hands caressed up the microphone stand. Sonny swallowed dryly. He had never so badly wanted to be an inanimate object. 

“ _ Cómo fue/no sé decirte cómo fue/no sé explicarme qué pasó/pero de ti me enamoré _ ”

Rafael rocked back and forth, his hips swaying softly to the trumpets and congo drums that seemed almost out of place in the modern karaoke bars. Sonny closed his eyes and saw beaches painted crimson and felt a warm breeze kiss his cheeks, salt on his lips. But when he opened his eyes again, all he saw was Rafael. Rafael, staring at him, his green eyes dusky as Sonny’s gaze finally met his. 

“ _ Tu risa como un manantial/regó mi vida de inquietud/fueron tus ojos o tu boca/fueron tus manos o tu voz _ ”

Sonny didn’t have a clue what he was saying. He knew enough Spanish to ask the most important questions his job required. But, as was always the case with music, he didn’t really need to. He know what he heard. What he saw. 

Knew that, if Rafael could see him now, he’d have the same look on his face that he’d seen on Rafael’s. Because Sonny knew. Sonny had known ages ago. When late nights on protective detail had turned into early mornings of bodega coffee and bantering about the day’s headlines.

When he’d been allowed to be a silent shadow and strut with the mighty before they fell - only to rise again to ultimate victory. 

When he’d stood across from Olivia and Noah, Amanda and Nick and Rafael, and raised a toast to families. 

The looks on their faces were the same because it was the only look you could have when the realization that you were in over your head, and that ‘tolerate’ had become ‘like’, which was veering dangerously close to ‘love’. 

“ _ No sé decirte cómo fue/no sé explicarme qué pasó/pero de ti me enamoré _ ”

Rafael held the final note with a quaver in his voice before fading out and giving the audience a little wave. He hopped down off the stage with both feet and made a beeline for the bar - and Sonny. He stopped a few inches in front

of Sonny, barely inside his personal space, and put his hands in his pockets, looking up expectantly into the other man’s face.

“Well, detective?”

“Well counselor. You sure were something up there.”

Rafael chuckled and rocked back on his heels, grabbing his coat off the back of the barstool he’d put it on when he’d arrived. “Sure was something,” he said back to Sonny slowly, draping his coat over one arm and dragging his eyes up Sonny’s body slowly. Sonny blushed to the tips of his ears, without hope that even the dim lighting in the bar would be enough to cover it. “You didn’t get a word of that, did you?” He cocked an eyebrow at Sonny, who just shrugged a shoulder.

Rafael nodded slowly and smiled, his eyes sad. “Didn’t really think so. Doesn’t matter anyway. We’ll just have to call this one a draw, I suppose.” He stuck his hand out towards Sonny.

“You’re leaving already?”

“It’s 11.”

“It’s 10:55.”

“By the time we finish this inane conversation and I make my way out the door, it’ll be 11.”

“You’re an hour early for the pumpkin, aren’t you Cinderella?”

“Some of us need our beauty rest, Sonny. Tell Amanda I said happy birthday, and thank her for a truly enjoyable evening.” He reached up with his extended hand, patted the man on the shoulder instead, and made his exit. 

** 11 PM **

“Counselor. Rafael! Wait up!”

Rafael was a block and a half away from the bar, and not a person prone to stopping the middle of dark New York streets. Especially drunk. 

“Go back to the bar, Carisi. Make sure Amanda gets home safe.”

“It’s my hands. And my eyes. And my voice. That’s why you love me.” He was panting, practically running down the street, hindered by the fact that his hands were shoved deep into his coat pockets and his breath was steaming in front of him. Luckily, it had stopped raining, but the temperature had dropped. Rafael had never been so pissed to have to walk to find a cab. 

Rafael spun on his heel, if only to save the detective from slipping and falling and breaking his neck, and furrowed his brow. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Without a word, Carisi tossed him his phone, and Rafael fumbled, barely managing to keep the thing from crashing to the ground. “You were right. I didn’t know any of the words. But I know how to Google.” 

Rafael glanced down at the phone and managed to see the name ‘Beny Moré” and “Cómo fue” typed into the search box, and Rafael wanted to curse. “I can’t believe the DJ sold me out,” he muttered under his breath.

“I don’t believe you’re really mad,” Sonny said, taking his phone back and shoving it deep into his pocket. He took another step forward, and Rafael realized how close he was standing when he had to crane his head back to meet the man’s bright blue eyes. “So. You don’t know how to explain falling in love with me, huh?”

His voice was full of gentle teasing. “Me? Oh, no.” He responded in kind, shrugging his shoulders and smiling sardonically. “Not any more than you want to hold me all night, our two hearts beating as one. Just a good old fashioned love song battle, right detective?”

It would have been so much easier if it was the liquor that made him reach out and slug Sonny lightly on the shoulder, something he had literally never done to another grown human before. But it wasn’t. And it wasn’t the liquor that made Sonny reach up and grab his wrist instinctively, pulling Rafael across the last few inches between them as he pressed Rafael’s fist to his chest and wrapped his other palm, warm and heavy, around it.

“Just a good old fashioned love song, Rafael? Just the power of music and drink, huh? Random words in front of random people?”

He shook his head, liquor and the silence of the street around them loosening his tongue. “Not random. Beautiful. That song is  _ gorgeous _ .”

“You’re gorgeous.”

“Detect-”

“Say it again. You said it in the bar, and you weren’t even thinking. I sang to you and you sand to me and you said it without thinking and just - please.”

Rafael took a deep breath and looked up at him, licking his lips as Sonny’s gaze traced the tip of his tongue like he’d never seen anything more beautiful. It shouldn’t have mattered. It was a name. A stupid name and he’d said it once already and they’d spent the entire night drinking and talking and  _ singing  _ for Christ’s sake and Rafael wasn’t even sure he was anymore. But when his lips moved, the word sat easier than any song ever had.

“Sonny.”

The blonde inhaled sharply and fisted his hands in Rafael’s lapels, bringing their lips together in a crash of lips and tongues that sounded like cymbals in his head. In the distance, thunder rumbled, the promise of more rain on the horizon. To Rafael it was the bass track to Sonny’s wandering hands, his whispered promises of all the filthy things he was going to do to Rafael once they got back to his apartment. 

It was a the start of a duet, their bodies would learn intimately in all the time to come, the first four count of a new symphony as they learned to play one another for the first time in the middle of a rain-drenched Manhattan street. 

 

Turns out, two hours was all it took to change the time signature on everything that came after. 


End file.
